I need to write this here because I will need to keep a scholarly voice when I respond in class. But I just read the most inane, idiotic, misreading of the Iliad...ever. I'm reading an introduction on rhetoric and the author examines the speeches in Book IX when Odysseus and others plead with Achilles to return to the battle. Not only does he pick the speeches apart like a math problem whose formula is Aristotle, but he does so without considering the motives of the speeches, why Homer would have them argue as they do, or the character motivations for different reactions. I know this isn't literary theory, but this is just plain bad reading.

After analyzing Odysseus' speech the author says of Achilles, "One is not surprised then to find Achilles' speech emotionally charged--and, as a consequence, disorganized." Of course, because emotion always results in disorganization and weaker persuasion or reasoning. Seriously?! Preachers, televangelists, politicians--many, many public speakers make a living off of speaking emotionally, or at least feigning said emotion. Now, the point there could be that unfeigned emotion, or rashness (which is an emotion, not all emotion) leads to disorganization, but there is no proof within the text of the Iliad that Achilles is responding rashly. Old dude does seem to realize that later on when, surprise of surprises, Achilles is apparently responding with direct and serious thought. And yet, when it is all said and done he ends with:

"This is all the argument that one can make out of Achilles' rebuttal. Most of his speech is taken up with impassioned but eloquent ranting. One thing is clear, though, at the end of his speech: he will not fight. And it appears that Odysseus, the renowned orator, the man who was never at a loss, has utterly failed to move Achilles. It is now Phoinix's turn to appeal to him, and then Ajax's. But we have not reproduced these two speeches in our selection."

I'm without words. Actually, I have many, many words but I would have to be guilty of "impassioned but eloquent ranting." I understand many of you may not have read the Iliad, but this is just so indicative of my irritation with the teaching of writing as it goes on in our education system today. Writing is an art. It is an art because it specifically appeals to those non-quantifiable parts of ourselves. I'm not speaking of technical writing here, or purely informative writing, but communicative writing. Writing that is intended to persuade, entertain, enlighten, communicate on some deeper level. You can look at why some things and work and some don't, in the same way you can examine a musical score and see why certain notes complete the phrase but others do not, but breaking it down in pieces doesn't teach someone how to write well. It doesn't teach them how to enter the discourse, how to choose words, how wield their words powerfully according to the situation.

And all of that aside, I feel as if this incredible reduction of the Iliad shows, more perfectly than I ever could, why such an approach to writing will never work in creating better writers. This total misunderstanding of Achilles' character, motivations, and Homer's choices in making him that way, shows a lack of awareness of Homer's discourse. Why is Achilles' emotional, impassioned? Why does he only return to the battle for vengeance, not for honor or riches? These are, perhaps, literary questions, but important to decoding the speech. Words are not numbers; they carry context, situational, societal and otherwise. You cannot look purely at the word and forget the situation that birthed them.

Perhaps I have ranted and not eloquently. I'm not sure I am making myself known here as effectively as I would like. My point is that to discount something for its emotion is as grave of a mistake as to allow emotion to completely overcome rationale.

And Lit and Comp aren't that dissimilar. Except when people do them both wrong.

How am I ever going to get a PhD?